Amaryllis found that her luck was the same as she was leaving Markarth, as the carriage driver and the owner of the stables were still asleep, which made sense since it was still around ten to eleven at night, and the guards that were supposed to be outside seemed to be in the middle of changing positions with their replacements, giving her a small window to leave the area before there were people that could see her. Instead of hiding behind the stables, like she did when she arrived outside the city ten to fifteen minutes ago, she simply reverted back to her original form on the steps, as she figured that since there was no one outside to see her do it there was no harm in transforming in front of Markarth's main entrance, before she took to the skies and flew away from the city. As she flew through the air she decided to just cut across the land of Skyrim and get to Windhelm as quickly as possible, so she could ask around and see if there was anyone that could tell her where the ruin she was looking for, Raldbthar as Muiri called it, was located, as she was sure that someone in that city had to know the exact location of it. There was also the chance that she could just stop by all the dwarven ruins on the way and attempt to ask the bandits if Alain was there, but that was the more foolish idea, because then she'd have to fight off a number of them before being able to take to the sky and move onto the next ruin, so in the end she settled for her current plan and flew through the air at the same speed she was using earlier.
While she did that, however, she passed by another camp that was filled with the people that were living in the wild, the same people that she needed to be careful about, though one thing that interested her was that the mountain they were camped near had a hole in the ceiling, revealing a seemingly forgotten ruin, one that she decided to ignore for the moment as she focused on her contract.
The other points of interest that she passed over during her trek were some more ancient ruins, the nordic type by her estimates, ones that happened to be home to the aggressive wild people that seemed to call this region of Skyrim home, before spotting Rorikstead off in the distance, where everyone was no doubt sleeping peacefully before they got up and went about their day. It took her thirty more minutes to reach the snowy part of Skyrim again, where she flew over some giant camps, who actually seemed to be sleeping as well, and a number of ruins that bandits seemed to be holed up in, along with Fort Greymoor and the city of Whiterun off in the distance, locations that were hard to miss since she had been inside one and close to the other. After that the next area that she recognized, before reaching the road that would take her to Windhelm, was Loreius' farm, where she had encountered Cicero for the first time, though a few minutes later she spotted two dwarven ruins that were close to each other, at least from her perspective they were, as there was a whole side of a mountain between them. One of the ruins was on the same level as that lake she had seen the bear earlier that day, when she decided to stop walking and start flying, while the other one was higher on the mountain, meaning that they likely weren't connected at all, but that made her wonder which of them was her target and which of them she could ignore for the foreseeable future, all while lending aid to her decision to ask the Windhelm guards.
By the time she reached Windhelm it took her about an hour a thirty minutes, after leaving Markarth, and when she reached her destination she landed on the bridge and moved into the shadows that were near the area the stables were in, which allowed her to shift her form into something more believable, a female Nord that was dressed up like Muiri, as she assumed the type of clothing the lady had been wearing was common in Skyrim, but also younger looking, so people would think that she was looking for revenge as well.
"What are you doing out here, at this time of night?" a voice asked, where Amaryllis turned around for a moment and found that a guard had been walking up the little ramp that was to the right, something she had missed, but fortunately it seemed like the man was getting tired and might not have seen anything, though it did tell her that she needed to be more careful in the future, "Don't you know that there are werewolves, vampires, burglars, and assassins out there at this time of night, looking for easy prey to capture in their webs?"
"I know, I was just looking for a ruin called Raldbthar." Amaryllis replied, as she suspected that there might be some other creatures or people that operated during the night, even though it was funny that the guard should mention assassins, considering that she was one now, before she focused on the reason behind why she was looking for the ruin, "I head that Alain Dufont called that ruin home and I've been trying to find it, but since none of the ruins I've seen have any markers to indicate which is which I can't tell if I've seen the ruin or if I've missed it."
"If you walked by Anga's Mill, than you certainly missed it." the guard stated, though he let out a sigh at the same time, as if he was buying what Amaryllis was presenting to him, that she was looking for Alain Dufont for revenge as well, though she wasn't expecting it to be this easy to get the information she needed, meaning that the Nord in question seemed like a breaker of hearts, "Raldbthar is located across the river that the mill is located on, and there's even a path that leads right up to the front entrance of the ruin, where Alain Dufont likely has some of his fellow guards keeping an eye out for wannabe heroes. If you want him dead, my advice is to hire out a few of the Companions, from Jorrvaskr, the mead hall that they call home, and they'll be sure to clear the ruin out of bandits and, more importantly, bring you Alain's head to prove he's dead."
"That... that sounds like a good idea." Amaryllis said, where she made it sound like she was suddenly having second thoughts about the entire thing, that she lost her nerve and couldn't go through with what she had planned, to which the guard, instead of taking her inside the city, had her follow him down the road that lead away from Windhelm and brought her to Kynesgrove, an inn that she passed by earlier when she was heading to Riften for the first contract.
She had no idea why the guard thought that bringing her here was the right thing to do, especially since no one was outside at the moment, before he excused himself and headed back to Windhelm, where Amaryllis caught him muttering to himself about how all the sweet and innocent girls of the land were having their hearts broken by Alain, though that did inform her that Muiri, despite what she said, was the only one that had the nerve to called upon the Dark Brotherhood to deal with Alain. Once she was sure that the guard was gone, and that there was no one around to witness what came next, she reverted back to her original form and took off, heading to the west once more, though this time around she kept the guard's directions in mind as she looked for the ruin that was her destination, because now she had the feeling she knew which of them she needed to focus on. It didn't take her all that long to retrace her steps back to where the mill rested, as that was fairly close to Windhelm, but once she did that she headed for the mountain side that contained the second dwarven ruin she had spotted, the one that was higher up than the first one, and spotted some white furred trolls that were likely tougher than their brown furred counterparts in the areas that weren't covered in snow. From there she found the entrance that the guard had spoken of, with three bandits standing outside the door that would allow her to enter the ruin, one of them standing on the lowest part of the steps and the other two positioned near the door, but far apart so that if anything happened to them it might not be easy for them to notice what happened.
Fortunately she was able to move around the upper part of the entrance and drop down behind the tents that were resting outside the door the bandits were guarding, where she let her magic wash over her as she shifted back into her assassin form, but she remained still for the moment, just to make sure that none of the three bandits were looking for anything or anyone. When it became clear that none of the bandits were patrolling the area, as they seemed to be doing the same thing they were doing when she approached them a few moments ago, she silently moved out of the area that she was hiding in and carefully approached the bandit that was the closest to the area that she had landed in, before she withdrew her dagger from it's sheath and quickly cut open the bandit's neck, killing him instantly. She made sure that the body didn't crash to the ground, as that was a surefire way for the other two bandits to hear what was going on and move to investigate what was going on, but once she was sure neither of them were moving from where they were standing she set the body down and remained in the sneaking position as she silently walked over to the next bandit. As it turned out even her meager skills in the art of stealth were more than enough to deal with the challenge that was ahead of her, as she was able to approach the second bandit and cut him down without the third one, who was standing on a lower level than the two she had taken out, noticing what was going on. While she was sure that anyone else would have entered the ruin at this point, instead of taking everyone out, she was different and didn't feel like leaving a bandit behind, so she carefully sneaked down to where the final bandit was standing, somehow without her turning and looking at the stairs she happened to be walking down, so it was rather easy for her to cut the bandit down, just like her friends, before she turned around and headed back to the door so she could head inside the ruin.
Once she was inside the ruin she found that the first chamber that she had access to had two stone pillars that were connected to the ceiling, some metal openings in the floor, a brass door that had been knocked down at some point in the past, and two bedrolls off to the left, where a single bandit was sleeping at the moment, though from what she could tell this ruin seemed to be large, just like Windhelm and Markarth were large, and that it might take her some time to find the person that she was looking for.
Amaryllis did find that there were two paths in front of her, where she could walk forward, through two vents of fire that didn't seem to be anywhere near stopping, and maybe unlock the gate that was at the end of the path, which would allow her to enter what seemed to be a massive chamber, or she could head to the left and make her way around an area that likely had more bandits for her to take out, but it did seem to be a tad bit safer. The first thing she did, however, was silently approach the sleeping bandit and quickly silenced him without wasting time, where she headed into the area that was in front of her and turned to the left, as she wasn't about to deal with the fire and, more importantly, she disliked bandits and was more than willing to take them all out, both to make Skyrim safer and to practice her skills. While she did that she found that the next area she walked through was as a short hallway that brought her to a somewhat longer and wider hallway, one that seemed to head in the direction of the larger chamber she had spotted earlier, and, as it turned out, there was a bandit that was walking over to one of the collapsed rooms that was at her end of the hallway. With his back turned towards her, and there being no other bandits in the immediate area, Amaryllis carefully approached her next target and sliced open his neck, before turning towards the path that was in front of her and found some pipes that were wrapped around some structures in this area, but she did stop for a moment as she spotted one bandit standing near a decent sized fireplace and another bandit that was sleeping on a stone bed of some kind.
She stared at the scene for a few seconds, as she knew that if she approached the bandit near the fire he would see her coming, both from how he was standing and because the fire was sure to cast her shadow over the wall, but in the end she came to a decision that would help her move the bandit, even though she was sure the other members of her Family would have just cut them down and move on with the mission. What she did was use a bit of her magic to levitate one of the brass pieces that was laying on the ground, which she was sure the makers of these ruins had created at some point in the past, and hurled it into the shadowy corner of the area, where the bandit in question seemed to hear the noise and the sleeping one just rolled over and faced the wall. She watched as her next target moved over to the area that the sound came from, moving from their post, and proceeded to patrol the area for a few seconds, no doubt looking for someone that had made the noise, and when their back was turned Amaryllis carefully rushed over to where she had put the brass object in, as the moment the bandit announced that it must have been their imagination, that they might have imagined the sound, she slipped in behind him and cut him down. After that she headed over to the sleeping area and quickly cut down the sleeping bandit, where she left the room the three bandits had been in and found that she had two paths to pick from, a locked passage and an open one that headed down into the larger chamber, where she headed to the right and descended towards the area she assumed Alain was in.
When she neared the bottom of the ramp she was heading down she found two bandits sitting in chairs, which just so happened to be in a pool of what looked like some flammable liquid, with a well dressed man standing near them, who had a warhammer of some kind on his back, but based on her limited knowledge she figured that the one that was well dressed was Alain Dufont, the target she was after. Instead of using fire to torch the two bandits that were too stupid to clean up the area they were sitting in, as that would be rather easy and it would alert Alain to the fact that someone was lurking in the shadows, she used her magic to mess with the odd spherical contraption that was resting near them, as she made it point at the ramp for a few seconds, which was long enough for Alain to order his friends to investigate what was going on, and, in his eyes, stop whichever bandit was messing with them. She stopped messing with the contraption as soon as the bandits started towards her position, where she waited in the shadows of the passage and made sure the pair walked by her as they went up to investigate the area that the other bandits had been located in, but luckily for her one of them stopped near the top of the passage as the other moved onward, giving her the chance she was looking for. It was easy to wait for a few more seconds, allowing her to end the life of the bandit that suddenly stopped, to prevent his friend from hearing the noise instantly and reacting accordingly, but as the other one noticed the dead bodies, however, that was the moment Amaryllis appeared behind him and put him down as well, leaving only Alain Dufont.
Interestingly enough Alain moved around the area his friends had been in, apparently waiting for them to return so he could inquire as to what they found, but when his back was turned, and his guard was lowered for a moment, Amaryllis seized her chance and walked into her target's shadow, where she reached up and slew him like all the other bandits she had killed so far.
Once that was done she stood up and turned around, so she could retrace her steps and head outside, but before she did anything else she turned towards the warhammer, which was a long staff that had a cylindrical head attached to the top of it, with spikes to hurt one's foe, and stared at it for a few moments, debating whether or not she needed to take it as proof or if she could leave it here. The reason was because she was sure that no one actually required proof that a deed was done, rather they took someone's word at face value, with very few even questioning what was going on, so it was easy to come to the conclusion that no proof was needed to tell Muiri that Alain was dead, but, at the same time, she felt that leaving the warhammer might be the wrong move, so she sighed and picked it up from where Alain dropped it, where she found that it was much lighter than what she assumed it was. She had to assume that this meant the weapon was far more deadly than what people thought it would be, though at the same time she was no expert when it came to weapons and was glad she was mostly using her dagger to get things done, as she was sure the two-handed weapons were outside the type of weapons she was capable of using in battle. With the warhammer in hand, and Alain laying dead on the floor, Amaryllis turned around and headed for the entrance, pausing here and there to collect the small amounts of coins that the dead bandits had on them, before finally reaching the door so she could head outside, where she found that it was still nighttime and that it was likely some time until morning arrived.
Since she was sure that Muiri would be sound asleep at this point, and wouldn't be expecting any news about Alain's death for some time, Amaryllis decided to head back to Windhelm, mostly to get some rest and plan when she would make her return to Markarth, to which she opened her wings again and took off, heading back to the city that had gotten her started with the Dark Brotherhood. Fortunately, thanks to the cover of darkness that was disappearing as each hour passed, she was able to return to the city in the same amount of time it took her to get to Raldbthar, where she suspected that it took her roughly an hour to make the round trip, and she landed in the same area she had landed in earlier, only this time she was sure there were no guards in the area. This time around she didn't bother with a Nord disguise, rather she shifted back into her Khajiit form and slipped the warhammer onto her back, while making sure the appearance of her armor was the leather she had been wearing earlier, as she was sure that walking into Windhelm with any sort of armor that belonged to the Imperials would be a reason to throw her in jail, as if she was a spy or something. Even though she knew that the guards of this city, who were soldiers in the Stormcloak army, didn't like outsiders visiting their city, they didn't seem to be the type that would assault her out in the open, and even if they did she had one or two spells from her home world that might help her escape, but for now she focused on what she was doing as she walked towards the main gate so they could enter the city once more.
As she approached the main gate, however, she felt the eyes of the guards on her and knew that something was going to happen before she even entered the city, but instead of reaching for her dagger, like someone else would do if they felt this way, she remained calm and came to a stop as one of the guards walked over to her, before coming to a stop himself as he focused on her.
"That weapon, it's Aegisbane, isn't it?" the guard asked, informing Amaryllis of the weapon's name, which meant that it might belong to someone in Windhelm and that the guards might think she stole it, given the nature of the race she picked for her current disguise, before he thought about something for a moment, "It was the sigil of clan Shatter-Shield, before Alain Dufont and Muiri stole it from the grieving family only a few days after Friga was murdered, and last I heard one of them went into a dwarven ruin to hide, while the other was forced to flee to Markarth."
"Well, I went into Raldbthar earlier, after finding that the bandits outside were dead," Amaryllis replied, though as she said that both the guard in front of her and the guard to her left were immediately interested in what she had to say about the ruin, or, to be more specific, Alain Dufont, the leader of the group of bandits, which was more than enough reason for her to continue her explanation, "and from what I could tell someone else had killed all the bandits inside the ruin, without any signs of self defense, and I found Alain laying on the floor, dead I might add, so I looted the place, took this weapon, and came here to sell off a few pieces before I moved on."
"Looks like someone got tired of Alain Dufont and hired the Dark Brotherhood to kill him." the other guard said, to which he and the first guard chuckled at that, as if they found something to be funny, even if he had no idea how truthful his statement was, before he focused on Amaryllis and the weapon that she was carrying at the moment, "You know, you might get a reward for returning that weapon to one of the Shatter-Shields, and they'll be happy to hear that someone took care of Alain, even if they might wish for the same to happen to Muiri."
Amaryllis nodded her head, to show that she understood what the guards were talking about, before finding that one of the guards followed after her and showed her where the house the Shatter-Shields lived in, one that was near where the shops were located, though it was a rather impressive looking house and so were the houses that were beyond it, even though the guard indicated that one of them was no longer being occupied at the moment. She wasn't expecting one of the Shatter-Shields to come to the door if she knocked on it, but she did so anyway, as the guard wanted to make sure that the warhammer was turned over to it's rightful owner, showing that he still didn't trust her due to her Khajiit disguise, but in the end a young Nord lady, about Muiri's age, unlocked the door and revealed herself. It was in that moment that she met Nilsine, the other target that her client wanted her to take care of, as a side objective that she determined wasn't part of the actual contract, and it didn't take her long to recognize the weapon that Amaryllis had recovered from Alain's body earlier, so much so that she immediately woke up her parents so they could see what had come home. Before she knew what was happening the entire Shatter-Shield family was offering her a reward for the weapon, just like the guard had said, and she decided that letting the family have their treasure back was the right thing to do, but she was caught off guard when the mother handed her a sack containing two thousand coins.
In the end, since they insisted on her taking the reward, Amaryllis took the sack and knew that she would be calling her personal chest in the near future, to store the majority of the coins inside it to lighten her load, though since it was night out, and would be that way for a few more hours, the family didn't welcome a total stranger into their house, which was understandable, but Nilsine did seem like she wanted to see her again one day, maybe to get to know her and hear the story of how she acquired Aegisbane from the one that stole it from her family.
With the deed done, and the door was closed, Amaryllis and the guard went their separate ways, where she walked to another part of the city and, upon finding that no one was around her, she summoned her chest for a moment and did what she thought about earlier, storing most of the reward inside the chest, leaving her with roughly five hundred gold total, mostly from what she collected from those she took out. Of course that included putting all the coins that she got from Nazir into the chest as well, which was two thousand two hundred and fifty gold coins from what she counted, but she was rather impressed that she had between five to six thousand septims at this point in time, especially since she had only been in Skyrim for nearly a week. Once that was taken care of, and she was sure no one had come running at the sound of her personal chest being summoned, she shifted back into her original form and took off, leaving Windhelm behind so she could focus on Markarth and the fact that Muiri wouldn't be up when she returned to the city, meaning she needed to find something to do before morning arrived. As she considered that thought, however, she remembered what was inside Silus' notes and recalled that one of the keepers of the three fragments of Mehrune's Razor was someone near Markarth, so all she had to do was figure out where Dead Crone Rock was located and then see what sort of defenses the people of that area had, before looking for the fragment.
It took her an hour and twenty minutes to get back to Markarth, where the chances of her hiding were getting limited as the sun got higher and higher in the air, but for now she still had an hour or two more before it was time for the people of the city to get up and start their days, to which she landed and took on the appearance of an Argonian traveler, a form she was sure the people of the city would forget about once she left. What she did was seek out one of the guards, as they seemed to be the greatest source of information in the entire land, instead of the citizens that were wandering the land all the time, and she found one standing near the area that the two bodies had been in earlier, where she discovered that the bodies were gone and the guard seemed bored out of his mind. The guard informed her that the ruin she was looking for was to the south of the city, where he and the other guards assumed it was the highest point of the area in question, but he warned her at the same time, informing her that the Forsworn were dangerous individuals and that whatever she was looking for in that area wasn't worth it, as even the toughest of mercenaries had trouble dealing with the Forsworn and the Hagravens that lead them, even though there was generally only one of those creatures in each of the ruins the wild men lived in. That interested her a little, as she had to assume that the person that held the fragment she was looking for might be one of the mysterious Hagravens, so what she did was thank the guard for the information and headed to a different area of the city, to make it seem like she was having second thoughts on the matter, before making her way up to the highest point of Markarth, the tower the guards apparently called home, so no one would see what came next.
She found that no one was around the area that she stopped in, meaning she must have been between the night shift switching with the day shift, so she switched back to her original form and took off, where she departed from the city and headed in the direction that the guard had indicated, knowing that she would have to be careful since her target was in one of the camps she knew would be hyper aware of what was around their base. Her best course of action was to locate a lone Forsworn, assassinate them like she did the bandits in Raldbthar, hide the body so the others didn't notice anything out of the ordinary, and then take their form as she sought out the Hagraven that held the Pommel Stone of Mehrune's Razor. It was similar to her plan for taking out the small group of bandits that were in White River Watch, she just killed the pair that were outside, used one of their appearances as a disguise, and made her way to the summit to take care of the leader, and since it had worked out so well she figured it was okay to use that tactic again, so she focused on trying to find Dead Crone Rock, as that would help her figure out what she needed to do next. The only thing she was worried about was the fact that the Forsworn might have a system for making sure no one was trying to infiltrate their camp or impersonate one of their people, but she would have to wait and see what they did when she arrived at her destination, though she did hope this didn't end in her making them chase her back to civilization.
It took her fifteen minutes to find the ruin in question, which was rather large if she was being honest, since she was looking at the exterior of the area, and, as it turned out, there was one of the aggressive wild men, a lady by the looks of it, wandering near one of the entrance of the ruin, but, from what the guard told her, she would have to walk up the stairs and head to the upper area.
What she did was quickly land and hide behind one of the stone pillars, somehow not alerting the Forsworn as to the fact that someone happened to be visiting her camp, and quickly found that she was able to cut open the lady's neck when she walked by the area she was lurking in, allowing her to hide the body in the bushes as she quickly shifted her form to match the lady's, and that included the armor. Personally, she found that the armor of the Forsworn was kind of skimpy, in terms of what everyone else in Skyrim was wearing, but she put that thought aside and walked towards the stairs, finding that none of the other Forsworn glanced in her direction, meaning that things might be working in her favor, so she kept moving like she belonged here and hoped things stayed this way. When she neared the top of the stairs, however, she found one of the men standing in front of a tent that contained a troll, meaning they were training creatures for some big event in the future, but she paid no attention to the man, who wasn't even paying attention to her, and headed up towards the next doorway that would take her to the area that the guard had told her about. On the other side of the door she found a table that was cracked in half, though she paid no attention to that as she walked up the stairs on her right and headed up to a tunnel that had a Forsworn sitting at a wooden table on the other side of the tunnel, but there was also a circular staircase halfway to where the lady was sitting and that was what she walked up, so she could figure out where her target was located. At the top of the stairs she found two more Forsworn that seemed to be doing nothing but sitting around, waiting for their leader to give them orders, and when she came to a stop at the top of the stairs, as there were two paths she could pick from, she found that the closest member of the group turned to face her, no doubt interested in what she was doing.
"You heading to talk to Drascua?" the Forsworn asked, though his tone suggested that he was bored out of his mind and was hoping for something interesting to happen in the near future, while at the same time the other Forsworn poked her head out of an opening to see who he was talking to, before spotting Amaryllis and sighed, as if she was bored as well and didn't want to be bothered at the moment.
"That's right." Amaryllis replied, because if the Forsworn was going to inquire as to what she was doing, and suggest that she was going to see the person that was listed in the small journal she had been given, she was going to play along and use this to the best of her ability, especially since it appeared that none of them seemed to have any measures to make sure someone was telling the truth and that they weren't lying to pass through the area.
The Forsworn turned to the person that was in the room behind him and had them walk over to the lever was resting, where they flipped it and the iron bars that just so happened to be blocking one of the paths raised up, allowing her to head to where Drascua was waiting, to which she nodded her head in thanks and headed through the opening, where she followed the passage and headed through the door that was at the end of it. Once she walked through the door she found one of the more menacing members of the Forsworn waiting on the other side, though it appeared that he was more focused on heading back inside the ruin and left her along the in the area, to which she headed up the wooden stairs that were in front of her and hoped that her target was at the top. What she soon discovered, when she reached the top of the stairs and came to a stop, was a decent sized area that had a few posts that had some soul gems at the top, a mysterious wall that was written in an odd language, a large chest that likely had some good gear inside it, and, what held her focus, was a creature that looked like a cross between an old lady and a raven, who shuffled around the area she was standing in and seemed to be focused on something else. As Amaryllis walked into the area that the Hagraven was in, and focused on how she was going to take out the creature that held the Pommel Stone, the hag turned her head for a moment and it appeared that she was muttering to herself, something about a new arrival, the wilds, and a number of other things, but, since she was distracted, it gave Amaryllis the opening she was looking for.
As Drascua focused on the stone slab that was in front of her, and the goat that rested on it, Amaryllis walked behind her, where it appeared that the Hagraven thought she was here for a power boost or something like that, and silently drew her dagger, before cutting open Drascua's neck and killed her in seconds, dropping the body to the ground, where she made sure to hide it behind the slab so the Forsworn didn't realize what was going on for some time. As she did that she found a pure black stone that seemed to have some sort of otherworldly energy to it, where she had to assume that this was the Pommel Stone she had come looking for, to which she smiled for a moment as she slipped it into her pocket and focused on collecting the rest of the loot in the area. The chest, as it turned out, had some of the elven armor she had seen the Thalmor wearing, minus the gauntlets and boots, a staff with a dragon's head carved into the top, and a steel axe that had a frosty aura to it, where she claimed the items, and the sack of two hundred coins that were off to the side, and made sure all of them were in her pack, before finding a gleaming stone on the stone slab. It reminded her of the one that was in Astrid's room, meaning that she might know what it was, to which she picked up the stone and added it to her collection of loot that she was leaving with, but once that was done she switched back to her original form and took off, heading back to Markarth so she could see whether or not Muiri was wandering around the city so she could deliver the news, get the payment, and then head back to the sanctuary to see what else Astrid had for her to do.
Fifteen minutes later she was back in Markarth, as she landed near the guard tower and switched to her assassin form as she headed down the stairs, because from what she saw back in Dawnstar the various guards of a city kept their eyes on members of the Dark Brotherhood, but, at the same time, they waited to see whether or not they did anything before arresting them, though it didn't take her long to find Muiri, who was standing outside a building that she assumed was the store her mentor owned.
"You're back?!" Muiri said, even though she nearly exclaimed that in the process, which would have brought some guards over to see what was going on, where this showed that she wasn't expecting Amaryllis to return so quickly and that she was worried about the contract they had talked about earlier, before calming down as she focused on the reason why she was talking to someone from the Dark Brotherhood and what she had asked her to do the last time they had seen each other, "Well, what news do you have for me? Is Alain Dufont... is he...?"
"He's dead. I infiltrated Raldbthar, found out where he was hiding, and killed him, while also reclaiming Aegisbane so it could be returned to it's rightful owners." Amaryllis replied, informing the young lady that the contract had been fulfilled to her specifications, that Alain Dufont was dead and that she never had to worry about him hurting anyone else, even if she was more interested in revenge than anything else at the moment.
"Thank you, that bastard got exactly what he deserved... but last I heard, Nilsine was seen walking around Windhelm with a smile on her face, so I guess you decided not to kill her as well." Muiri stated, though that told Amaryllis that news must travel fast in Skyrim, even though it was a rather large place and her wings allowed her to travel between two points in a fraction of the time, before she sighed and pulled out a sack she had been carrying, "I have to admit that I'm... rather disappointed in your decision. Here's the payment for killing Alain, and nothing for letting Nilsine live. Just remember, that was your decision, and it makes me question the word of the Dark Brotherhood."
"Let me offer you a word of advice: if you wanted Nilsine dead that much you should have said that she was part of the contract, as in two kills for the price of one." Amaryllis said, as that was her understanding of the rules of the group she had joined, that they only killed individuals that the contracts were for, even if some would have likely done the optional kill as well, so saying that Nilsine wasn't part of the contract, like Muiri had done, meant that she didn't have to kill that person at all, though she did accept the sack that contained her payment.
Instead of being annoyed by that statement, like she assumed her client would be after being confronted in such a way, Muiri actually stood still for a few seconds as she took in that information, as if understanding that she might have messed up what she said earlier, before Amaryllis departed from the area and headed towards the main entrance for the city, as it was time for her to head back to the Sanctuary and inform Astrid of her success with this assignment, before seeing what the future held in store for her.